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Closed Eyes

ARolf Feb 11, 2006 01:23 PM

my russians are now up due to the crazy New Orleans weather, but my males eyes are closed and suken. i looked back at some of the pictures from last year and discovered that his eyes always sunk in more than usual, but his eyes are seldom open.

is this a side effect of hibernation?
could he dehidrated?
could he just still be cold?

i put a light on them today to see if this will remody the problem.
any opinions?
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1.3.3 Common Mud Turtles
0.0.2 R.E.S.
0.0.1 Y.B.S.
1.2 Russian Tortoises
0.1 Hamsters
3.0 Dogs
2.3 Family
3 Baby Muds

Replies (3)

bradtort Feb 11, 2006 02:26 PM

I've been fortunate in that my russians have always been OK after hibernation, even when it lasted over 100 days.

I do two things:

1) I soak them. I soak them several times before they go into hibernation to get them fully hydrated and to clean out their bowels. Then I pull them out of hibernation every few weeks, weigh them, and soak them again. This does not interfere with their hibernation - I soak them in cool water for maybe 15 minutes and then I put them right back.

2) I followed the steps in #1 for a couple years, but my torts would still loose about 5% or more of their bodyweight. That's not a big problem, but I was still worried. So then I started to slightly dampen the newspaper substrate in their hibernation box. Very slightly. I figured they were exposed to some humidity when they hibernate underground in the wild, so I would add a little to their otherwise desert-dry surroundings in my very dry basement. They stopped losing so much weight after that.

Of course I live in Missouri with colder winters than you experience. My basement drops below 60F in December and stays their until March. This is sufficient to keep the torts down. If you have warmer weather, the torts may be expending more energy and therefore losing more weight and hydration.

Good luck!

ARolf Feb 12, 2006 12:06 PM

the torts dont seem to like it when i soak them, the ytry to get out of the water like a bat out of hell. but i will try soaking them and using news paper next year. i used timothy hay this year.
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1.3.3 Common Mud Turtles
0.0.2 R.E.S.
0.0.1 Y.B.S.
1.2 Russian Tortoises
0.1 Hamsters
3.0 Dogs
2.3 Family
3 Baby Muds

ARKON Feb 11, 2006 07:00 PM

I would soak them alot in luke warm water and get some vitamin A eye drops. You can get a tortoise eye wash that contains vitamin A, I have seen them for sale at many different pet stores and online. I had the closed eye problem with some of my baby russian torts at first and started with the drops and now use them every now and then as a preventative.

Good Luck
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